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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unforgettable.,
By Hypoxy (Bath, ME United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Pastures of Heaven (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) (Paperback)
My mother, not a reader herself but trusting that anything sold by the Baptists & titled "The Pastures of Heaven" had to be OK, bought this book from a clearance table at the Baptist Book Store in Dallas TX as a Christmas present for (then) 8-year-old me.I devoured it at 8 and--except for "Travels With Charley"--still love it more than anything else Steinbeck wrote. The crystal-clear (to a grownup) allusions to prostitution & incest sailed right over my innocent head, but the funny or tragic--usually both--stories of the wildly disparate kinds of people who settled in the Salinas Valley (can anyone flesh out fictional characters like Steinbeck does, and with so few adjectives?), and the image of how that beautiful green valley must have looked to the pioneers after their ordeal of mountains & desert, have stayed with me for almost 60 years. I'm now going to order a copy to replace the barely-hanging-together one inscribed "From Mom & Dad, Christmas 1944". (Yellowed "Clearance $.25" sticker still on the back.)
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Rare Multi-read book; a Different Sort of Steinbeck,
This review is from: The Pastures of Heaven (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) (Paperback)
You needn't be familiar with Steinbeck's work to enjoy Pastures of Heaven. Indeed, he wasn't a well-known writer at the time of its publication. But you DO need to be familiar with the way books used to be read -- over and over and over, allowing the richness of a work to be revealed after multiple readings. So it is with Pastures of Heaven.Certainly, a single reading of this work is rewarding and each story alone could serve as a great introduction to Steinbeck's style and grace. But these stories are interrelated in ways that appear only on the second and third and fourth readings. And...the book should probably be read slowly. (Hint: pay VERY close attention to the first story!) Like other readers, I, too, was disappointed/puzzled after the first reading, but then I found certain images from the book would appear to me weeks and months later. I found the book again in my bags as I traveled cross-country and re-read it slowly, taking two nights to read each story. As I drove the next day, I'd let my mind wander over the textual terrain it had encountered the night before. The story grew in richness and complexity this way and has left me fully satisfied. It remains within close reach on my shelf. While the book as written is a treasure -- one often neglected in discussions of Steinbeck's portfolio -- I have to say that time is changing its nature. As the book nears its 75th birthday, it gets only more true; the universality every good story has is here exemplified and magnified. Centuries from now, this book may be seen not so much as a portrait of its time, but rather a timeless tale, merely set conveniently in a place and era Steinbeck knew well; in this sense, the work reminds me of Shakespeare's work. Final thought: the work also grows richer by the reader's extension of it. The reader will inevitably draw parallels with his or her own life; doing a little contemporary research to investigate side avenues also give the book more depth. I was distracted for a week comparing Steinbeck's Tularecito with Shakespeare's Caliban. In short, if you are an inquisitive, thinking reader, one not afraid to give as much to Steinbeck's novel as he has given to you, then you will enjoy this book immensely.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A pleasant surprise, yet unlike Steinbeck's other works,
By
This review is from: The Pastures of Heaven (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) (Paperback)
For me, reading Steinbeck is a hit-and-miss endeavor. So "The Pastures of Heaven," undeservedly one of Steinbeck's least-known works, is a pleasant and affecting surprise--a volume of interlinking stories (simply called "chapters") whose mature style and semi-mystical themes remind me, oddly enough, of Garcia Marquez. This collection is not your typical Steinbeck, but it's memorable and astonishingly elegant nonetheless.Although every story in the book has something to recommend it (I can't imagine any reader not liking at least several of them), I especially enjoyed one, labeled Chapter VI. (The story must have had particular resonance for Steinbeck as well, since he later published it separately in a private edition entitled "Nothing So Monstrous" and added an epilogue.) About a widower who faces the community's disapproval of the unorthodox way he raises his son, this edisode will haunt me for some time. The price of the book is worth this "chapter" alone.
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